


first base

by renaissance



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Awkwardness, Canon Compliant, Humor, Kissing, Kissing Lessons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 19:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11653377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: Viktor's first kiss is the worst kiss of Yuuri's life.





	first base

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookyfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/gifts).
  * Inspired by [home run](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11651439) by [spookyfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/pseuds/spookyfoot). 



> this fic has a twin which you should read too, "[home run](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11651439)" by spookyfoot; we've written two takes on a similar scenario and done a lot of planning together, which has been so much fun. i have spooky to thank for a lot of what happens here, as well as all the enablers on discord. you know who you are.

Their kiss after Yuuri’s free skate at the Cup of China is unequivocally the worst kiss of Yuuri’s life.

That’s including all those people he’d kissed in college, his first kiss, back in high school, and his last kiss, the end to a disastrous date with a boy Yuuri had never spoken to again. It’s the worst because it’s Yuuri’s childhood crush kissing him, someone he’d idolised before he’d even thought about kissing real people, not just posters, and it doesn’t happen over a candlelit dinner with a vase of red roses between them and Viktor’s hand closing over Yuuri’s, their fingers twining together, as he leans across the roses to tenderly press their lips together.

No, it happens while Yuuri is sweaty and disoriented, and Viktor runs at him from the side of the rink and practically throws the two of them together, jumping on Yuuri and propelling him backwards onto the ice. At least Viktor has the good grace to put a hand behind Yuuri’s head and cushion his fall, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that, in those brief airborne moments, Viktor’s teeth knock into Yuuri’s and their noses are smushed together and Yuuri genuinely thinks he’s going to crack his head open and die.

As kisses go, it is not only substandard. It’s downright _awful_.

“That was the only thing I could think of to surprise you more than you surprised me,” Viktor says.

 _I’ll say_ , Yuuri thinks. He holds back a roll of the eyes, and says, “Really?”

 

* * *

 

Back in the hotel that night, Yuuri comes out of the shower to Viktor lounging seductively on his bed, bathrobe hanging a bit open at the chest. This is it, he thinks. This is the moment that they have their _proper_ first kiss, slow and passionate and a little bit sexy.

Yuuri isn’t good with words. He clambers onto the bed and lets his towel dip by his hip. He’s nervous—of course he’s nervous—but he pushes through; no matter how terrified he first was of Viktor’s overt affections, he’s had some time to accustom himself to the idea of something between them, and he’s had _Eros_ to remind him that sex doesn’t need to be about getting out of his head for a while. That it can be about love.

The soft smile on Viktor’s face reassures Yuuri that this is what both of them want. He prowls across the bed on all fours, feeling like a bit of a tool, but also feeling like a bit of a god as Viktor’s eyebrows rise up to meet his hairline and the corners of his mouth turn up in surprise.

This is the first indication Yuuri has that Viktor might be as nervous as he is.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” Yuuri says. He doesn’t know if it counts as dirty talk, but the flush across Viktor’s cheeks is definitely doing something for him, so he keeps going. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away when you first arrived—should have let you sleep with me—”

“Yuuri!” Viktor gasps. “This is so sudden, I don’t know what to say.”

“I wasn’t the one who’s been flirting all this time,” Yuuri says. His legs are either side of Viktor’s. “It’s not sudden at all.”

“Yes, but—” Viktor flounders, seemingly at a loss for words. His mouth opens and closes a few times. By now Yuuri is almost on top of him. “—but this is different!”

Yuuri hovers with the tip of his nose just touching Viktor’s, but not moving any closer. “You kissed me,” Yuuri reminds him. “It didn’t last long enough. I demand a do-over.”

This, it seems, is something Viktor can manage. “With pleasure,” he says. Then, he sucks in a breath and puffs out his cheeks, puckering his lips as he deflates them. It’s the most unattractive thing Yuuri has ever seen. Luckily for him, he loves Viktor anyway.

He cups one side of Viktor’s face in the palm of his hand, and leans in.

“Ah, before we go any further,” Viktor says, “I should… get my lip balm. I don’t want to kiss you with dry lips.”

“I really don’t care,” Yuuri says. He’s starting to get impatient now. “Your lips will get all wet when we kiss, anyway.”

“Of course,” Viktor says, in a way that implies he actually had no idea that kissing makes your lips wet, which wouldn’t make sense unless it’d been a long time since he’d last kissed someone, or he’d never kissed anyone at all.

No, surely not. Someone as suave as Viktor “let me tell you about my past lovers” Nikiforov, international connoisseur of winking on camera, never been kissed? The very idea is laughable. It must have been a while, though. Viktor is definitely worried about something. He’s blinking a lot more than usual. Up close, Yuuri marvels that he can pick up on this level of detail.

“Relax,” he says. “I’m nervous too.”

Yuuri moves in closer, loosening his towel and letting it slip even lower down, and trailing the hand that’d been on Viktor’s face down his neck, to his chest, pushing his bathrobe off one shoulder.

Viktor visibly swallows. “What about protection?”

“For kissing?” Yuuri raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“No, I meant for, uh—the other—” Viktor shuts his eyes tight, “—but if you just want to kiss, we can kiss. I can do that.”

Surely not.

“Viktor,” Yuuri says, “have you ever kissed anyone before?”

In the intervening silence, Yuuri’s towel slips down entirely and unbidden, which means that he is buck naked when Viktor opens his eyes again and says the most horrifying string of words Yuuri has ever heard: “I, um, no. No, I haven’t.”

“Have you ever,” Yuuri says, trying very desperately to pretend that Viktor isn’t staring at his dick, “hooked up?”

Viktor shakes his head. “You have?”

“Of course I have,” Yuuri says. He’s annoyed, and not just because Viktor is focusing more on the first flesh-and-blood penis he’s ever seen than on Yuuri’s face. “Did you have me pegged for some kind of blushing virgin?”

“I asked you, and you said ‘no comment!’” Viktor says frantically, looking Yuuri in the eyes at last. “I thought that meant you’d never been with anyone!”

“No, it meant I didn’t want to relive the horror of my college years, and—no, you know what, I’m not going there. I’m not talking about it.”

“Wow, Yuuri, you really are a seducer,” Viktor says. There’s no shortage of glee in his tone as he adds, “I’m so lucky to be in the hands of someone so _experienced_.”

“No, I—”

Viktor puts a finger to Yuuri’s lips. “So, are you going to kiss me or not?”

Well, Yuuri can’t exactly do anything about it with a finger on his lips. He shakes his head, and watches the way Viktor’s face falls.

“How come?”

Yuuri sighs and moves Viktor’s hand away from his face. “If we’re going to kiss, and—keep kissing, it’s got to be good.”

Now, Viktor’s eyes light up. “ _Yuuri_! Are you going to be my coach?”

Yuuri nods. “Yeah.”

“Then teach me now,” Viktor says, all enthusiasm. He doesn’t need a coach for his puppy-dog eyes, that’s for certain.

“I’m kind of tired,” Yuuri admits. “Can we sleep first?”

“That’s good too,” Viktor says, taking Yuuri’s hand and kissing his palm.

He crawls under the covers, bathrobe and all, and pats the space next to him. Yuuri doesn’t go immediately; he gets off the bed, dries off properly, and puts on his pyjamas. Then, the moment he’s by Viktor’s side, Viktor is wrapped around him like a sloth.

“It’s so nice to be able to do this with you,” Viktor says. “I know we’ve slept—in the same bed before, but it’s different to know that I’m by your side, as your boyfriend.”

 _Boyfriend_. First Viktor surprises Yuuri with a kiss, and now he’s decided they’re a proper couple without so much as mentioning it beforehand. Not that Yuuri minds, but what’s next? Viktor announces their engagement before Yuuri has a chance to live out his childhood fantasy and get down on one knee? Not if Yuuri can help it. Not that he should be thinking about that; they’ve only just started going out, after all.

“Next time, ask first,” Yuuri grumbles, but Viktor is already asleep, snoring softly into the crook of Yuuri’s neck, and it hits Yuuri like a shockwave that he is so embarrassingly in love with this man. If he had thought his long-term crush on Viktor was all-consuming, being with Viktor in person is an absolute revelation. And Yuuri couldn’t care less if the Viktor who acts a playboy for the media is not the Viktor who doesn’t know how to kiss and is content to sleep in a hotel bathrobe, and _snores_. As Yuuri drifts to sleep, the last thing he remembers thinking is that the first thing he’ll do when he when he wakes up is kiss Viktor all over his soft-looking lips, skill and experience be damned.

 

* * *

 

 

So naturally, the next morning, Yuuri decides that he isn’t going to kiss Viktor at all until Viktor knows the basics.

The closing days of the Cup of China rush by in a mess of preparation for the exhibition skate, the banquet, and tourism, when they can. Guang Hong is an eager, if bashful, tour guide, and although Yuuri enjoys it—it’s been so long since he was last in Beijing—he does not enjoy the way Viktor is on edge the entire time, refuses to talk to anyone but Yuuri, and pays very little attention to whatever they’re doing. He manages to hold out, barely.

At last, when they’re back in Hasetsu, Viktor caves.

“Yuuri, you said you’d teach me!” He clings to Yuuri’s sleeve and does the puppy-dog eyes which he must know by now Yuuri can’t resist. “Before we go to the rink today, how about you coach me first?”

The only problem with this is that they’re still in bed, and Yuuri hasn’t exactly woken up properly yet. He grumbles something incoherent even to his own ears, then manages to say, “Right now?”

“Of course right now,” says Viktor, infuriatingly chipper.

Yuuri digs his knuckles into his closed eyes until there’s no more sleep in them and forces himself to sit up. “Okay. Right. Kissing.”

Viktor nods, very solemnly. “Should I be taking notes?”

“No.” Yuuri picks his languorous hands up and rubs them together, warming them up. “This is how I used to practice. Make a fist with your thumb on the outside, like if you were going to punch someone—”

He demonstrates. Viktor’s eyes go wide. “Where did you learn how to punch someone?”

“—and hold the crease between your thumb and forefinger in front of your mouth, so it almost looks like a pair of lips,” Yuuri says. “And it’s common sense. If you throw a punch with your thumb under your fingers, it’ll get crushed.”

“Wow,” Viktor breathes. He tries it for himself, holding his fist out and bumping it against Yuuri’s. “What now?”

“Put your lips on the hand lips,” Yuuri says. “Gently—yeah, just like that.”

But then Viktor starts moving his lips, and it looks like he’s trying to eat his own thumb.

“No, uh—”

Viktor pulls away to speak, and there’s a string of drool connecting his lower lip to his thumb. “Slower?”

“For a start, you’re not experienced enough to use your teeth yet,” Yuuri says. “Keep them out of the equation. Now try again. Open your fingers up a little and just…”

Viktor makes the hand sign for “OK” and sticks his entire tongue through the hole.

“Oh, god,” Yuuri says.

“Not good?” Viktor asks—or at least, Yuuri _thinks_ that’s what it was, but it’s hard to tell, because his entire tongue is hanging out of his mouth.

“Let me just—”

Yuuri pulls Viktor’s hand away from his face. His tongue stays out. Yuuri shows Viktor his own fist and twists his thumb, levering it up and down.

“For a quick, simple kiss, that’s how much your lips should move. We’re not going to add tongue until you get the hang of that.”

 

* * *

 

 

At the end of the day, Viktor calls Yuuri to his side to proudly demonstrate his newly-acquired skill. It’s a miracle he got any coaching done at all. Yuuri leans his chin on Viktor’s shoulder from behind to get a bird’s eye view; Viktor tenderly presses his lips to his hand and moves them in a very good facsimile of a real kiss. He captures his thumb between his lips and Yuuri can’t stop his mind from leaping to what it would feel like to have his lower lip between Viktor’s like that. Viktor uses so much lip balm that it’d probably be very _smooth_.

“How was that?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri pushes at the edges of his own comfort zone and gently headbutts Viktor’s ear—it’s not quite a nuzzle. It seems to be the right move, though, because Viktor nuzzles back.

“It was okay.”

“Only _okay_?” Viktor lets his hand drop. “Not—”

“Well I won’t be able to tell unless I’m the one you’re kissing,” Yuuri says, bolder than he feels.

Viktor makes a soft noise something like a whimper, and turns to face Yuuri—still in his skates, with guards on, so they’re of a height. Yuuri teeters forward and lets their noses brush, only for the briefest of seconds, before Viktor’s lips meet his. There’s pressure, and there’s that sliding motion as Viktor takes Yuuri’s lip between his, the way he’d been practising, and Viktor’s lips are exactly as smooth as Yuuri had imagined.

Then, Viktor leans closer in, their front teeth clack together, and Viktor licks the space between their lips, which only serves to give Yuuri a very slobbery moustache.

“How was I?” Viktor asks, breathing right into Yuuri’s mouth.

“Getting better,” Yuuri says. He figures it’s best to be diplomatic. He doesn’t want the puppy-dog eyes to come out again. “But… your tongue needs some work. Usually when you kiss with tongue, your tongue stays either inside your mouth, or inside my mouth.”

“Back to coaching, then,” Viktor says.

Yuuri nods. “Right. No kissing with tongue until you can prove to me you can keep it in your mouth. And if you’re good enough at that, I’ll let you put your tongue in _my_ mouth.”

It’s pretty much the least sexy thing Yuuri has ever said, but Viktor gets this sultry look on his face. “How about no kissing at _all_?”

“You really don’t want to—” _Oh_. “Viktor. You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?”

“I sleep in your bed, Yuuri,” Viktor says innocently. “You would know if I was getting off.”

Yuuri snorts, and takes Viktor’s hands in his. “You know what I mean.”

Without preamble, Viktor pulls Yuuri into a tight hug. “I know. I think this should be all or nothing, don’t you?”

It’s more power than Yuuri’s used to, especially holding it over his lifelong idol. It’s also terribly appealing. And they’ve come this far, with the coaching and the teasing and—

“And you’re getting off on it,” Yuuri says, laughing.

“Yes,” Viktor says. “And I am very much getting off on it.”

 

* * *

 

 

They start the next evening, with Viktor’s first lesson in using tongue.

Like Yuuri’s lessons in Eros, they do this using katsudon. Viktor has chopsticks in one hand and a spoon in the other—in case his chopstick skills fail him—and he’s staring down at the bowl before him like it holds the secrets of the universe in its eggy depths. With determination, he clasps a slice of crumbed pork between his chopsticks.

“Take a bite out of it,” Yuuri says, “but keep your tongue at the back of your mouth.”

“This is going to be awkward,” Viktor says morosely, glowering at the pork.

“Not as awkward as it’s going to be if you can’t kiss me with tongue,” Yuuri says.

Viktor doesn’t have anything to say to that. With a face like he’s just stuck his nose behind a skunk, he tips his head back and closes his teeth around the pork. There’s a pause, and Yuuri gets intrusive flashes of Viktor choking and wonders if he’s made a horrible mistake with this lesson, but then Viktor returns his head to its normal position, chews, and swallows.

“That wasn’t so hard,” he says.

In fact, Yuuri thinks, it was a little too easy.

“Give me the chopsticks.”

“Aww, but Yuuri—”

“Unless you don’t want to kiss me?”

Viktor hands him the chopsticks.

For good measure, Yuuri also pulls the bowl across the table so it’s closer to him than Viktor. He roots around with the chopsticks, pushing some egg out of the way to pick up a single grain of rice. Leaning across the table, he holds out the grain. As expected, Viktor leans forward to meet the chopsticks with his mouth, and at the last moment Yuuri jerks his hand back.

“Without your tongue,” Yuuri clarifies. “Just your lips.”

Viktor nods. He opens his mouth and twists his lips about until he settles on a position—unfortunately, that position is pursed like a cartoon fish. Still, Yuuri lets it happen. Viktor’s fish lips pucker shut around a good two inches of the chopsticks. He pulls away, dragging his teeth down the wood, and when the chopsticks are fully out of his mouth, the grain of rice is gone.

“Ta-da!” Viktor grins. The grain is lodged between his front incisors.

Yuuri doesn’t say anything, just picks up another grain. “This time, no teeth.”

Viktor swallows the grain, gulping.

He does better this time, curling his lips around the very tip of the chopsticks, but he ruins it by inhaling the grain of rice with a great _whoosh_ ing noise. It’s so absurd that Yuuri bursts into laughter and drops the chopsticks. When he composes himself, he says, “This time, hold your breath.”

After fifteen grains of rice—Yuuri is keeping count—Viktor finally manages to get it into his mouth with only his lips. No teeth, no weird breathing, no extraneous cheek movement. He’s so pleased with himself that Yuuri decides not to push it for tonight, and lets Viktor finish the katsudon for dinner.

“Your form is getting much better,” Yuuri says. “We’ll try this again every night for a week.”

“You sound like a coach,” Viktor says.

Yuuri shrugs. “If I do, it’s because I learnt from the best.”

 

* * *

 

In between the katsudon dinners, Viktor learns to use his tongue by chewing gum and blowing bubbles, curling the gum into different shapes and sticking his tongue out to present his latest creation to Yuuri. It’s gross—it’s beyond gross, really—but Yuuri begins to memorise the pattern to Viktor’s tongue, the shape of his mouth.

“I’ve heard stories about people who can tie knots in cherry stems with their tongues,” Yuuri says. “But I don’t know. It seems like an urban legend.”

Viktor, not to be deterred, takes Yuuri’s hand and announces, “We’re going to the supermarket!”

They sit on the beach with a bag of gummy snakes and a punnet of cherries between them. The lid of the punnet quickly fills up with cherry pips, and Viktor has no success on the cherry stems, but he does a little better with the gummy snakes. The sight of him sitting there, sunlight catching the metallic frame of his sunglasses, with the head of a gummy snake hanging out of his mouth, makes Yuuri want to lean across the cherry pip graveyard and cleanly decapitate that snake, and kiss Viktor too, for good measure.

But, no—not until Viktor’s lessons are complete, fulfilling this perverse pact of mutually assured delayed gratification. Viktor seems to be doing very well with the tension. Yuuri’s not sure how much longer he can hold out.

While Viktor gets better at eating rice with only his lips, to the point that Yuuri is now letting him hold the chopsticks on his own, blowing bubbles and tying knots in gummy snakes, Yuuri comes up with other lesson plans. He thinks about all the good kisses he’s had and all the worst—including the one in China—and pieces together the details, what made them good, what made them bad. In the end, he decides that beyond the mouth, it really comes down to coordination.

“So, we’re going to Minako’s studio after dinner.”

Viktor cocks his head to one side. “Aren’t you exhausted? You’ve been on the ice all day.”

“This isn’t about skating,” Yuuri says. “This is a lesson for _you_.”

“In that case,” Viktor says, “I’ll be sure to go easy on you.”

Yuuri plugs his iPod dock into a powerpoint at the corner of the studio and presses play on a slow waltz. His reflection in the mirrored walls is much more confident than he feels, striding across the floor, socks slipping on polished wood, holding out one hand for Viktor to take.

“Kissing isn’t just about what you do with your mouth,” Yuuri says. “I want you to get used to putting your hands on another person.”

“I’ve done ballroom dancing before, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Viktor says.

“That’s our warm-up,” Yuuri says.

He’s made a playlist. After this, it’s all sambas, salsas, tangos. But a few minutes into the waltz, it becomes clear that there’s already enough heat in the room for ten tangos; the spot where Viktor’s palm is pressed against his hip feels like it’s been branded with a hot iron poker, and in turn Yuuri can barely keep his hand on Viktor’s shoulder, willing it not to stray. This shouldn’t be weird. Technically, they’re dating.

They’re dating, but they haven’t kissed properly. Surely it won’t be a problem if Yuuri breaks their promise? A kiss is a kiss, whenever it happens. Maybe Viktor won’t truly learn without practical lessons.

As the track comes to an end, Yuuri dips Viktor, leaning over him and watching the way his pupils go wide. Viktor is breathing so heavily that Yuuri can see his chest rising and falling. They haven’t even exerted themselves that much. He leans down, ever so slightly parts his lips with intent, eyelids fluttering closed, and—

Viktor jabs a finger right between Yuuri’s lips. “Uh-uh-uh! No kissing until my lessons are over!”

 

* * *

 

 

Yuuri had never defined an endpoint for Viktor’s lessons. It was going to be until he was good enough at the techniques to try it in practice, but that is quickly becoming an untenable situation. Yuuri finds that he wants to kiss Viktor _now_ , and all the time—when they’re getting ready for bed and Viktor’s jinbei is hanging off one shoulder; when they’re waking up beside each other in the gentle morning light; when Yuuri arrives at the Ice Castle, exhausted from jogging, and Viktor is stepping off his bicycle. And every time Yuuri leans in, Viktor pulls back.

In the end, the lessons end in one unspoken and mutual moment of decision.

It’s right after Yuuri lands a clean quad flip, gliding along the ice and performing the rest of his routine almost on autopilot—a moment later, he realises what he’s done, and by then he’s almost back to the gap in the barrier where Viktor’s standing. Viktor is holding his arms out, just like he’d done in Beijing, and Yuuri runs towards him.

This time, they know better. Viktor stumbles backwards but manages to catch Yuuri perfectly, and they spin in a half-circle, clinging to each other, laughing. Yuuri presses his hands to either side of Viktor’s face, squishing his cheeks, and Viktor’s laughs die down until he’s grinning stupidly at Yuuri, and Yuuri knows he’s doing the same.

Then, at last, they kiss.

As kisses go, it’s only brief. Definitely a step above substandard.

“I’ve been waiting so long,” Viktor says, “waiting for—”

“ _You’ve_ been waiting?” Yuuri is too happy to be properly offended. “You’re the one who insisted that I didn’t kiss you at all until you knew how.”

“And I did get off on it,” Viktor says, shrugging. “Didn’t it pay off? Wasn’t that a great kiss?”

“It was okay,” Yuuri says magnanimously.

“Only _okay_?” Viktor gives Yuuri an exaggerated wink. “Then we’d better try again and—”

Yuuri kisses him. He surprises himself with his own forcefulness, but Viktor doesn’t seem to mind. He kisses back, starting slow with his lips mostly closed, then teases Yuuri’s tongue into his mouth and runs his own tongue around its edge. Viktor has one hand at Yuuri’s waist, one combing through his hair, his nose tilted at the perfect angle and his teeth respectfully withdrawn, except for when he nips at the side of Yuuri’s bottom lip, and _that_ wasn’t in any of the lessons.

Yuuri could kick himself. Viktor Nikiforov, sweet twenty-seven and (almost) never been kissed, is a _natural_.

“Looks like you didn’t need those lessons after all,” Yuuri says, resigned.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Viktor says, taking care not to breathe into Yuuri’s mouth but lightly, against his skin. “You taught me something very valuable: that I’m really into being made to wait.”

Yuuri laughs, swatting at Viktor’s arm. “Be serious.”

“Then, in all seriousness,” Viktor says, “you did an excellent job of teaching me how to use my lips and my tongue, and—can you think of anything else I can do with those skills?”

“I might have a few ideas,” Yuuri says.

Viktor presses a kiss to Yuuri’s cheek, eyes half-lidded. “Then, will you teach me that, too?”

“With pleasure,” Yuuri says, “but first—”

He kisses Viktor again, and again, and each one is better than the last.

**Author's Note:**

> the word "lips" no longer looks real to me


End file.
